1. Chapter 3 Infancy & Childhood
Section 1:
Physical, Perceptual, and Language Development

2. Nature vs. Nurture
Developmental psychologists study the following main issues:
Continuity vs. stages of development.
Stability vs. change.
Nature vs. nurture.
Newborns have the ability to see, hear, smell, and respond to the environment.
Their response is triggered by the right stimulus. Grasping, or rooting reflexes are examples.

3. Maturation Psychologist call internally programmed growth maturation.
Unless a child is persistently underfed, severely restricted in movements, or deprived of human contact, they will develop accordingly.
Your maturation is a permanent change in behavior, just as learning is.

4. Perceptual Development
Infants have mature perception skills.
An experiment developed by Gibson and Walk in 1960 revealed children had depth perception.
However, their non-verbal skills will often undermine their judgment.

5. Language Language and thought are closely related.
Both abilities involve using symbols.
We are able to think and talk about things that are not present, and about ideas that are not true.

6. The acquisition of language propels you into further intellectual development.
Psychologists argue that language is reinforced behavior or that it is inborn.
Is there a critical “window” of opportunity for learning language.

7. What’s wrong, but isn’t? Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde
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8. Section 2 Cognitive and Emotional Development
Jean Piaget (1896 – 1980) chronicled the development of thought in his own daughter (“L”).
Small children think differently than adults in many ways.
They form their own hypothesis about how the world works.

9. Principles of Cognitive Development
Understanding the world involves the construction of schemas, the mental representations of the world.
Assimilation is the process where we try to understand a new or different object or concept by using one of our preexisting schemas to make it fit.
In Accommodation, we change our schema to fit the characteristics of the new object or concept.

10. Object Permanence
Since infants understanding is in the here and now, they only know their toys by touch, and sensations it produces.
When an infant’s toy is taken away, they have no knowledge of it’s existence, it’s just gone.
A month old will look for a toy that you place under a pillow, they’ll look there if they see you move the pillow, but place the toy behind your back. It’s here where things begin to change.

11. At 12 – 18 months, it becomes harder to fool them; they’ll search the last place you put it.
But an 18 – 24 month old will guess that you have put it behind your back and go behind you to look.
This is a giant step in intellectual development. The child has moved from where they believe their actions have created their world, to where they recognize you and others are independent of their actions. Piaget called it Object Permanence. It’s where things still exist, instead of going away, or all gone.

12. Representational Thought
Once object permanence has been reached, Piaget suggested a child’s intelligence is no longer one of action only.
Now children can picture (or represent) things in their minds. Representational Thought

13. Conservation
Between 5 & 7, most children begin to understand what Piaget calls conservation, the principle that a given quantity does not change when it’s appearance is changed.

14. Egocentric
The child can’t understand that the difference in width makes up for the change in height or that even if the pieces are smaller, that 2 = 2.
Egocentric thinking refers to seeing and thinking of the world from your own standpoint and having difficulty understanding someone else's’ viewpoint and other perspectives.

15. Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
Piaget described the changes that occur in children’s understanding in 4 stages of cognitive development. We’ll define each after listing them.
Sensorimotor: (birth – 2)
Preoperational: (2 – 7)
Concrete Operations: (7 – 12)
Formal Operations: (12 – up)

16. Sensorimotor (birth – 2 yrs.)
Simple motor responses; lacks object permanence.

17. Preoperational (2 – 7 yrs.)
Lacks operations (reversible mental processes)
Exhibits egocentric thinking.
Lacks concept of conservation.
Uses symbols (like words or images) to solve simple problems or to talk of things not present.

18. Concrete Operations (7 – 11)
Begins to understand concept of conservation.
Has trouble with abstract ideas.
Classification abilities improve.
Conservation mastered.

19. Formal Operations (11 yrs on)
Understands abstract ideas and hypothetical situations.
Capable of logical and deductive reasoning.

20. The Strange Situation
Moms and children go through a series of events where moms left the infants and then returned.
3 patterns emerged initially, then a fourth.
Secure attachment: Infants welcomed the mom back without anger. They balance exploration and the need to be close.
Avoidant attachment: Infants avoid or ignore mom when she leaves and returns.
Resistant attachment: Infants aren’t upset when mom leaves but avoid her when she returns.
Disorganized attachment: Infants behave inconsistently.

21. Parenting Styles and Social Development
The way in which children seek independence and the ease with which they resolve conflicts about becoming adults depend in large part on the parent-child relationship.
Authoritarian families – parents are the bosses. They don’t believe they have to explain their actions.
Democratic families – children participate in decisions affecting their lives. There is a great deal of discussion and negotiation in such families.

22. Parents may simply give up their child-rearing responsibilities.
Permissive Families – (also laissez – faire) children have the final say.
The parents may attempt to guide the children but give in when the children insist on having their own way.
Parents may simply give up their child-rearing responsibilities.
Later there was a 4th parenting style identified, the uninvolved parents. This role type is uncommitted and is quite distant from their children.

23. Effects of Parenting Styles
Studies show that adolescents who grow up in democratic or authoritative families are more confident of their own values and goals than other young people.
This stems from 2 features, the establishment of limits and responding to the child with the warmth and support.
Generally children of democratic families want to make their own decisions with or without advice.
Several reasons exist for this. 1st the child is able to assume responsibility gradually. He or she is not denied the opportunity to exercise judgment (as in authoritarian) or given too much too soon (as in permissive). 2nd the child is more likely to identify with parents who love and respect him or her than with those that see them as incompetent.

24. Finally, through their behavior toward the child, democratic parents present a model of responsible, cooperative independence for the growing person to imitate.
Although the style parents adopt in dealing with their children influences adolescent development, it would be wrong to conclude that parents are solely responsible for the way children turn out.
Children themselves contribute.

25. Child Abuse
Child Abuse is the physical or mental injury, sexual abuse, negligence, or mistreatment of those under the age of 18.
On average, about 1/3 of all cases are confirmed.
Many reasons exist for child abuse.
1. Abused parents tend to abuse.
2. Overburdened or stressed.
3. Low-birthweight infants, mentally or physically impaired children.
Sociocultural stresses like unemployment, lack of contact with family, or friends contribute.

26. Social Development
Socialization is learning the rules of behavior of the culture which you were born and raised.
Some rules are clear and others leave room for interpretation. Boys should be aggressive, girls should be more feminine, etc.
In absorbing notions of what makes individuals behave as they do, a child acquires an identity as an individual, a member of different social categories, and member of a family.

27. Freud’s Psychosexual Development
Oral Stage, infants pleasure seeking is focused on the mouth. 1st 18 months of life. Freud claims weaning is a source of frustration and conflict.
Anal Stage, the pleasure seeking is centered on functions or elimination. 11/2 to 3 years old. Through toilet training the child learns to curb freedom and establish social control.

28. Phallic Stage, infant’s pleasure seeking is focused on the genitals
Phallic Stage, infant’s pleasure seeking is focused on the genitals. 3 to 6 years old. The child becomes a rival for the affection of the parent of the opposite sex. Freud saw it as happening in the unconscious. In that process, called Identification with the aggressor, the child takes on the morals of the parent.
Latency Stage, sexual thoughts repressed, child focuses on social and intellectual skills. About age 6 to puberty. The process of redirecting sexual impulses to learning tasks is called sublimation.

29. Genital Stage, sexual desires renewed, individual seeks relationships with others. Puberty thru adult. Ideally when one reaches the genital stage at adolescence, one derives as much satisfaction from giving pleasure as from receiving it.
Freud believed personality development was essentially complete as we enter adolescence. Today few agree that sexual feelings disappear in childhood.

30. Erikson’s Psychosocial Development
He takes a broader approach than Freud.
He studied the periods of life when a person’s goal is to satisfy desires associated with social needs.
Erikson believed that childhood experiences have a lasting impact on the individual, therefore development is a lifelong interactive process between people.
Freud and Erikson stress emotional dynamics. That learning social rules is different from learning to ride a bike, or learning a language. Many disagree saying social development is a matter of conditioning, (learning) and imitating. That it’s reward and punishment driven.

31. The Cognitive-Development
Learning theory suggests those who give reward and punishment, and serve as models, shape the child.
Cognitivists (who follow Piaget) see the child as the shaper.
Social development is the result of the child’s acting on the environment and trying to make sense of their experiences….(games children play shows that.)

32. Lawrence Kohlberg Works with Moral Development.
He worked with the development of what is viewed as right and wrong.
He deals in three levels, and 6 stages, two in each level.
Pre-conventional, Conventional, and Post-Conventional

33. Stage 1 – children are egocentric, no right or wrong per say, but how do I avoid punishment. Therefore the man should steal the medicine because people will blame him for his wife’s death.
Stage 2 – how to receive rewards as well as avoid punishment. They interpret the golden rule as “help someone if they help you, and hurt someone if they hurt you.”

34. Stage 3 – Children start being sensitive to what others would want and think. In this stage a child would think the man should steal because people would think it would be cruel for him not to, or that he should not steal because it would be a criminal act. In other words they want social approval, so that is how they select.
Stage 4 – Children less concerned with the approval of others. Law and order is key here. They pick and stand on a basis of law and it is seen a moral standard.

35. Stage 5 – perspectives broaden. Is the law fair or just
Stage 5 – perspectives broaden. Is the law fair or just. They believe as the world evolves, so does law, and that they are never absolute. The important question is whether the law is good for society as a whole.
Stage 6 – Do the principles apply to everyone. Therefore do laws that are broken have the same punishment for all, or do you have means to avoid the punishment or circumstance.
In the scenario, critics argue Kolhberg’s dilemma is gender biased. Girls are taught to be more empathetic.